WRC FRANCE
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ninth. Latvala continued in style, going
faster as the rally progressed, soon passing
Hirvonen. Hir vonen was well off the pace all
rally, waiting hopefully for a Day 3 team order,
which would artificially elevate him one place.
As the rally progressed, others had
misfortunes. On Day 1 Kimi Raikkonen retired
when he drove into the rear of Henning
Solberg’s (hardly damaged) car on a road
section. Peter van Merksteijn crashed on Day 2.
Fifth-placed Kris Meeke went terminally off the
road. Daniel Oliveira went off the road injuring
his co-driver Carlos Magalhaes (broken ribs).
On Day 3, the seventh placed Mini of Armindo
Araujo slid off the road on a stretch of gravel
into a wall and retired.
After the rain on last year’s event had
covered the asphalt stages with slimy mud, the
organisers took the drastic action of placing
steel spikes on the edge of the tracks. This was
a wicked and dangerous ploy, which could
easily have led to disaster and was far from
successful. Gravel still found its way on to the
stages.
In the WRC the only serious problem was
when Kris Meeke had a spike penetrate the
front of his car and end up only millimetres
from the radiator.
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